Faculty and Staff

Professors of Dance

Carol joined the Bates Dance Program in the Fall of 2003. She has been an international choreographer, performer and teacher for over 25 years. Based first in New York, then Barcelona, Seattle, Sydney and now Maine, she has worked with many companies and independent choreographers as well as her own companies, Radio Suec and Carol Dilley & Co. She has performed her work in the USA and Europe both as a solo artist and as director/choreographer of those companies.

Carol has also dedicated a lot of energy into the creation of opportunities for the development and performance of dance works. She co-founded La Porta, a performance series dedicated to the creation and promotion of independent dance in Barcelona and Europe, and later founded Dance Briefs, a similar initiative in Sydney, Australia. She received her MFA from the University of Washington and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from the University of Technology in Sydney. Carol continues to choreograph and perform internationally.

Julie is a native Texan, holds a BA in Theatre/Dance with a Minor in Philosophy from the University of Houston and an MFA in Dance from the Ohio State University. Her early movement studies included scholarships to both the Houston Ballet Academy and Hubbard Street, where she studied ballet, modern and contemporary dance. She has held adjunct faculty/visiting professor positions at the U of Houston, Denison U, Ohio U (2002-2011), and most recently was an Assistant Professor of Dance and Head of the Dance Minor Program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (2011-16). Fox has performed with Houston Grand Opera, Ballet Chicago, Karen Stokes Dance, Stephan Koplowitz, Hopestone, Leslie Scates, and many independent artists on planet Earth. Her choreographic works have been presented in public and academic venues in Houston, Columbus, OH, and Eau Claire, WI. Her creative activity/research includes interdisciplinary dance making utilizing set and improvised material presented in traditional and alternative spaces, as well as written scholarship in the areas of Aesthetics, Dance Pedagogy, Curriculum Design and Assessment, and Writing Across the Curriculum, with particular interests in the teaching and learning of physical practice and creative process and the cross-disciplinary application of the multi-modal teaching approaches explored in Dance Studies. She is excited to share the creative space with the students and faculty of Bates College, eager to dive into the creative possibilities with the greater community, and, as always, looks forward to the Dance.

Studio Faculty

Roberto was born in Bari, Italy and trained at Scuola di Balletto Classico Cosi-Stafanescu (Reggio Emilia-Italy) and with Ecole Atelier Rudra Béjart Lausanne (Switzerland) where he studied with Azari Plisetzki, Sulamith Messerer, Suzanne Farrell, David Howard and Colette Milner.

Roberto is a graduate of the Centre National de la Danse, Pantin-Paris (France) as a certified Ballet Teacher, where he was invited back as a Guest Artist to teach. He has taught at DV8 Dance Company (England), and in France at the Conservatoire de Dijon, the Conservatoire CRR de Montreuil and Ville d’Avray (Paris) and at the Conservatoire de danse de Biarritz.

In the fall 2013 he joined Portland School of Ballet, as the director of the CORPS program, the pre-professional program of the school.

His Choreography has been seen in Portland Ballet’s Boy Meets Girl, the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s Peter and the Wolf (Discovery Series), and his Alice was seen in the fall 2015, in collaboration with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and MECA.

Roberto will join the faculty at Bates College (Lewiston-ME) in the fall 2016 and he will also teach the advance Ballet program at Scarborough Dance Center.

Rachel, born in Trinidad, first studied the Royal Academy Dance Syllabus, at The Caribbean School of Dance in Port of Spain. Her accomplishments there led her to being honored with a scholarship to the Joffrey School in New York City, where she also studied with David Howard and Maggie Black; performing feature roles in the Joffery II Company before joining the Joffrey Ballet in 1975. In the Joffrey Ballet, she performed principal roles in Oscar Ariaz’s Romeo and Juliet, Gerald Arpino’sSacred Grove on Mount Tamalpais, Sir Frederick Ashton’s Jazz Calendar, Jose Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, and others by Agnes de Mille, Vaslav Nijinsky, Gerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. Her television performances include Rodeo, presented at the Kennedy Center at the request of the White House, marking the historic meeting of President Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiao Ping, then Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China. Moreover, her national television broadcast history included “The Joffrey Company at Wolftrap”, and “Nureyev and The Joffrey Ballet on Broadway”. In 1982 she moved to Maine; joining the faculty of the Ram Island Dance Center and later The Portland Ballet where in 1996, she performed “Tituba” in Sam Kurkjian’s The Witches of Salem. Rachel now teaches at the Portland School of Ballet and at The Dance Center in Auburn.

Alexandra is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago, where she earned her BFA in Choreography. She has taught and performed dance in Chicago, South Africa, St. Louis, New York and Portland, ME.

As both a soloist, and as Co-Artistic Director of dance-making duo, s h i f t, Alexandra works by means of improvisation. Her practice is both born from, and informs the self in relationship to the surrounding environment. Growing up in Southern Maine forced her to confront her identity in the face of racism, intolerance and ignorance. Owning and discovering one’s self is a constantly emerging journey, which she investigates in her creative process. Her work explores the self in relation to the Other.

Theater Tech

Michael is a Theater designer, artist and amateur bird watcher living in Lewiston, Maine. His scenic and lighting design work has been seen in theaters nation wide. From 1993 to 1996, Michael was company member and principle designer for Mad Horse Theater Company in Portland, Maine, designing acclaimed productions of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, King Lear, and Hamlet. Michael’s design work has been seen at Tennessee Repertory Theater, Disneyland, Ram Island Dance Company, Portland Stage Company, Worchester Foothills Theater, and PORT Opera. In 1996 Michael founded Scenic Solutions, providing specialized fabrication for corporate and not-for-profit clients including Time Warner, The Children’s Museum Of Maine, Cole-Haan, and LL Bean. Michael received the Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for Theater Design in 1997. Other interesting projects from Michael’s life include a permanent exhibit on the cultural history of paganism and witchcraft for the Salem Witch Museum, and touring sets for The Dave Mathews Band and ZZ Top. Michael is currently a Lecturer and Technical Director at Bates College, Department of Theater where he has consulted on and fabricated many projects for William Pope.L, including Blackular, Chocolate Fountain, A Person History On Videotape. When time permits, Michael builds pinhole cameras and produces hand coated non-silver photographic prints. A portfolio of toy camera images shot in Japan was released early in 2008. Michael holds a MFA form California Institute of the Arts, and a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University. In the spring and fall, Michael can often be found scanning the treetops for warblers and listening for the melodious tones of the wood thrush.

Carol brings to the Department of Theater and Dance an eclectic professional and academic background in costume design, puppetry arts, and the creation of devised ensemble theater.

Besides earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Dance and in Theater Design, Carol has studied Japanese theater forms and traditional clothing on a fellowship from the Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission, and Objectheatre at the Institut International de la Marionnette in France.

She has served on the faculties of the University of Maine Orono, University of Southern Maine, and Lone Mountain College (San Francisco), and has designed costumes for dance and theater companies both here in Maine and California.

From 1982-2011 Carol was Co-Artistic Director of Figures of Speech Theatre, an award-winning actor/puppet/movement theater with an international touring radius. In this position she co-created and produced numerous original theater works, performed extensively worldwide, and developed educational programs for all ages based in the puppetry arts.

Justin has been working as the Assistant Technical Director of the Bates College Theater and Dance Department since 2003. Lighting design for modern dance is on of his favorite artistic challenges. During the summer he is the Director of Peace Camp at One Tree Center in South Portland, Maine. Peace Camp is a place where young children learn how to create performance focused around social justice issues. Justin also volunteers at Long Creek Youth Development Center, working with youth incarcerated in South Portland using the arts as a vehicle for building confidence and self-awareness. Justin is filled with gratitude for being able to stay busy doing what he loves to do, making, and creating.

Founders of Dance at Bates

Marcy Plavin arrived at Bates in January 1965. This was the beginning of the Bates Dance program. She launched the Bates College Modern Dance Company four years later in 1969 and became a Lecturer in Dance in 1971. Marcy has an M.A. in Dance from Wesleyan University. In addition to teaching academic and studio courses, she produced over 150 dance concerts, contributing choreography of her own as well as advising student choreographers and touring with the Company to schools around the State. She always encouraged an active guest artist residency program and brought to Bates such artists as Trisha Brown, Stephen Petronio, Doug Varone, Mark Dendy, Pilobolus, Eiko and Koma, Kei Takei, Murray Louis, Doug Elkins, Tere O’Connor and others. She is an active member of the national academic dance community and served on the Board of the American College Dance Festival Association as well as hosting the American College Dance Festival six times at Bates. She founded the now internationally renowned Bates Dance Festival and still serves on the Festival Advisory Council of the Festival. Marcy was active in the Maine dance community and lectured at a variety of institutions as well as contributing articles to the Maine press and National Dance Journals. Marcy passed away in the fall of 2016.

Laura Faure was the director of the Bates Dance Festival for thirty five years. Since taking this position in 1988 she has developed the Festival into an internationally acclaimed contemporary dance program known for its artistic excellence, curatorial vision, and commitment to building community through dance. A former dancer, choreographer and teacher with thirty + years of experience in the field of dance, Ms. Faure also works as a freelance arts manager and consultant specializing in the performing arts. She has been a project coordinator and consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts Advancement Program, the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Maine Performing Arts Network, as well as for individual artists and arts groups. She has served as an evaluator for the many state and regional arts agencies, the NEA, Creative Capital, Rockefeller Foundation, US Artists, and the Alpert Foundation. She served two terms on the Maine Arts Commission, where she chaired the Dance Panel. Ms. Faure is a founding member of The African Contemporary Arts Consortium and has been developing a cross-cultural exchange program with artists from Japan, Indonesia, Africa, Cuba, Portugal and Mexico since 1994.